The Italian Job Gone Wrong: Production Nightmares Exposed
If you thought the drama on Emily in Paris was limited to the scripted love triangles and questionable fashion choices, think again. The real mess was happening behind the camera, and director Andy Fleming just spilled the tea on what sounds like a logistical nightmare of epic proportions. In a stunningly candid interview, Fleming pulled back the curtain on the streaming giant's latest season, revealing a production that was scrambling to keep its head above water while hopping between countries, battling crowds, and dealing with a cast that apparently needed constant reminders of what scene they were actually in.
According to Fleming, the decision to drag the production from Paris to Rome and then to Venice wasn't just a scenic upgrade; it was a continuity disaster waiting to happen. He admitted that the scenes were shot wildly out of order, a tactic that creates massive headaches for continuity and performance. "It's my job to remind the cast where we've been, where they're coming from and where they're going," Fleming confessed, hinting that the stars were struggling to keep track of their own character arcs amidst the travel chaos.
This isn't just standard movie magic; this sounds like a scramble. When a director has to hold the actors' hands to remind them of their emotional headspace because the schedule is so fractured, you know things are tense on set. Fleming tried to spin it as his "responsibility," but reading between the lines, it sounds like he was wrangling a confused cast through a multi-country tour while the clock was ticking. The gloss of the final product hides what appears to be a frantic race to the finish line.
I noticed the editing felt jumpy this season. Now it makes sense if they were shooting everything out of order. It felt disconnected.
The move to Italy wasn't just a fun vacation for Lily Collins and the crew. Fleming noted that half the season took place outside of France, calling it "kind of a lot for us." That is industry code for "we bit off more than we could chew." With the pressure to top previous seasons, it seems the production stretched itself to the breaking point, prioritizing grand locations over a stable shooting environment. The cracks are showing, and Fleming's comments confirm that the "effortless" Parisian vibe was anything but effortless to capture this time around.
Disrespectful or Lucky? Filming During a Papal Funeral
In perhaps the most jaw-dropping revelation of the entire interview, Fleming casually admitted that the Emily in Paris circus rolled into Rome right in the middle of a massive, somber, real-world event: the death of the Pope. While the world was mourning and the Vatican was in transition, the Netflix crew was there, cameras rolling, treating a historic religious event like background noise for a fashion rom-com.
Fleming described the experience with a tone that some might find incredibly tone-deaf. "We were there through the whole gamut. We were there when the previous Pope died when the conclave was formed… It was much more exciting and interesting than any kind of problem for us," he said. While millions of pilgrims flooded the city to pay respects, the production team viewed the "congested" streets as merely "exciting."
The audacity to film a show about marketing and dating mishaps while a Papal conclave is happening just streets away is the kind of Hollywood entitlement that usually gets swept under the rug. Instead, Fleming is boasting about it. He claims they were "really there" for the whole process, turning a sacred transition of power into a fun anecdote about crowd control. One has to wonder how the locals felt about American cameras clogging up the already packed streets during a time of mourning and celebration for the Catholic Church.
Imagine trying to mourn the Pope and Emily Cooper is running around in a ridiculous outfit trying to get an Instagram shot. The disrespect is wild.
It adds a layer of gritty reality to the "Emily in Rome" storyline that feels uncomfortable. While the show presents a fantasy version of Italy, the crew was exploiting a very real, very chaotic moment in Rome's history to get their shots. It is a bold admission that proves nothing stops the content machine–not even the death of a Pontiff.
The Erasure of Gabriel: Is Lucas Bravo Being Pushed Out?
The writing has been on the wall for months, but Fleming's breakdown of Season 5 all but confirms it: Gabriel is history. The original heartthrob of the series, played by Lucas Bravo, has been effectively sidelined, and the director's comments about the new leading man are a slap in the face to the OG fans. The romance between Emily and Gabriel, which fueled four seasons of angst, was ended "as quickly as it started," a creative choice that reeks of behind-the-scenes tension.
We have all heard the rumors of Bravo being unhappy with his character's direction, calling the show "cliche" in past interviews. Now, it seems the showrunners have clapped back by replacing him. Fleming spent a significant amount of time gushing over the new Italian love interest, Marcello, played by Eugenio Franceschini. "We gave him a lot more to do this season and he's really so good at it. He really stepped up massively," Fleming raved.
Notice the shade? By emphasizing how much the new guy "stepped up," it casts a long shadow over Bravo's reduced role. The director explicitly stated that Emily has to "discover what Paris means to her by going other places," which sounds like a convenient excuse to leave the French chef behind in favor of an Italian upgrade. Gabriel's storyline has been reduced to rubble, and the speed at which Emily moved on suggests the writers were desperate to scrub the Gabriel era from the script.
"Marcello plays a big part in this season," Fleming insisted. It is a clear signal: the Gabriel train has left the station, and if you were rooting for the original couple, you are out of luck. The show is aggressively pivoting, and it looks like Lucas Bravo is the casualty of this creative war.
Scandalous Hookups: Alfie and Mindy?!
If the death of the Gabriel romance wasn't enough to send fans spiraling, the revelation of a hookup between Alfie and Mindy is the final nail in the coffin of the girl code. Fleming touched on the "unexpected connection" between Emily's ex-boyfriend (played by Lucien Laviscount) and her best friend (played by Ashley Park), confirming that the writers have officially run out of external characters and are now just pairing up the spares.
This plot twist is messy, even for this show. Fleming tried to justify the incestuous nature of the friend group dating pool by calling the relationships "complicated." "I'm really trying to bring out the layers," he claimed. But let's call it what it is: a betrayal. Mindy hooking up with Emily's serious ex-boyfriend is the kind of drama that usually ends friendships, but in the glossy world of this show, it's just another "layer."
The director admitted there is a lot of "reacquainting everybody with the timeline," which is industry speak for "the plot is so convoluted even we are confused." By throwing Alfie and Mindy together, the show is risking alienating viewers who loved the loyalty between the two female leads. It screams of desperation for drama, sacrificing character integrity for a quick shock value hookup.
The "Espresso" Nightmare: Mindy's Musical Meltdown
Ashley Park's musical numbers have become a staple of the series, but the performance of "Espresso" in Season 5 was apparently a logistical hellscape that nearly broke the production. Fleming singled it out as the "biggest challenge" of the entire season, revealing that what looked like a seamless sequence was actually a Frankenstein monster of editing stitched together from three different days in three different locations.
"With the boat, we shot that in one location. When she's stepping off the boat, we shot that in a second location. When she's walking into the party, that was a third location," Fleming detailed. The level of continuity management required to make Ashley Park look like she was singing one song in one continuous flow is mind-boggling. It hints at a production that was flying by the seat of its pants, unable to secure a single location for a three-minute song.
Why was it so hard? Was it permit issues? Diva demands? Or just poor planning? Shooting a single musical entrance across three days suggests a chaotic set where nothing went according to plan. The magic of television usually hides these seams, but Fleming is ripping them open to show just how disjointed the filming process really was.
The Venice Water Stunt That Risked It All
Marcello's fashion show in Venice wasn't just a pretty scene; it was a production nightmare that could have gone horribly wrong. Fleming described it as the "most complicated sequence we've ever done," involving building a massive water reservoir in a historic piazza because the city–rightfully–wouldn't let them flood the actual square.
"You can't just go in and flood a piazza in Venice, they won't let you," Fleming said, as if they actually considered trying to flood a historic landmark for a TV show. The entitlement is staggering. They ended up building a fake lake for the runway, mixing real water with digital effects. The amount of money and resources poured into this 30-second visual gag is astronomical.
Fleming admitted that "more work went into that sequence than any other sequence in all five seasons." Think about that. All that effort for a fashion show, while the character arcs are arguably suffering. It highlights the show's priority: style over substance, regardless of the logistical cost or the risk to the historic locations they are invading.
The Rogue Proposal: Actors Left Alone on a Boat
The season culminated in a dramatic proposal on a gondola, but the way it was filmed sounds like a recipe for disaster. Fleming revealed that for the pivotal scene, the crew essentially abandoned the actors on the boat, mounting a camera and letting them drift off into the canals of Venice alone.
"I was really worried about it," Fleming admitted. He described running alongside the canal with a tiny monitor while the actors were "independent of us." In a high-stakes scene involving a "reversal of fortunes" (a cryptic hint that the proposal might not have gone as planned, or the wrong person proposed), leaving the talent unmanaged on a moving boat is a massive risk.
If anything had gone wrong–a line flubbed, a ring dropped in the canal, a rogue wave–the director was helpless on the shore. It adds a layer of tension to the scene knowing that the actors were truly isolated, performing the climax of the season without a safety net. It worked out, but it's yet another example of the high-wire act this production was performing in Italy.
American Pantry Propaganda?
In a bizarre detour, the show spent "months and months" constructing a fake American supermarket inside the US Embassy in Paris for a 4th of July date scene. Fleming bragged about the "hundreds of products" they sourced, calling companies individually to get items shipped over. "It was a huge amount of work to get that many American products onto this little set," he said.
This level of product placement dedication borders on obsessive. While the script seemingly moved away from Gabriel's restaurant, the production team was breaking their backs to build a shrine to American junk food. It feels like a weird flex–spending months curating a fake grocery store while filming out of order and dodging papal funerals. It perfectly encapsulates the chaotic priorities of a show that has become more about the brand partnerships than the story.
With Emily having a "Posh Spice moment" in her fashion evolution and the show aggressively marketing American nostalgia, Season 5 feels less like a narrative and more like a series of expensive, disjointed vignettes held together by a director frantically reminding everyone where they are.
The season is streaming now, but knowing the chaos that fueled it makes the on-screen drama look tame by comparison. With Emily now questioning her life in Rome versus Paris, and the cast dynamics shifting tectonically, one has to wonder: Will there be anyone left standing for Season 6, or has the production finally collapsed under its own weight?
